The Embassy (Canada): Falun Gong Practitioners Face Torture with Electric Batons, says Communist Defector

Editor's Note: Han Guangsheng, the former head of the Shenyang City Judicial Bureau and the deputy head of the Shenyang City Police Department in Liaoning Province recently brought to light some inside facts about the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party. The following reprint from The Embassy, a weekly magazine considered as a respected guide to government and politics, is an excerpt from his address, translated from Mandarin, at the second edition of a China Conference Series held at the University of Toronto on August 5th, 2005.

After experiencing the lengthy and painful process of being completely loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), then being suspicious and disappointed, and in total despair, I defected and resigned from all posts, internal and external, that I held to the CCP in September of 2001. Recently, I went public to expose the evilness of the CCP. What I would like to share with you today is why I have broken away from and exposed the current state of the CCP. I hope my speech can help you gain a clearer understanding of the CCP.

[...]

The CCP keeps proclaiming that the peoples' interests are above all. Is this true? In reality, looking at the critical moments in history when people wanted change, one can see clearly that the CCP is in fact regarding its own Party's interest above all. For example, the anti-rightist movement, the Cultural Revolution, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, where many defenceless students were killed, and the ongoing violent persecution of Falun Gong that started in 1999, and which is yet another well known calamity.

I have personally witnessed the effects of the persecution of Falun Gong before I defected. The CCP has established a Gestapo-like organisation called the 610 office, named after the date it was set up, to persecute Falun Gong. The 610 office spans from the Central Party Committee to the Party committees in all provinces and cities across the country. Luo Gan, the secretary of the Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs, heads it. The public security bureau, the procuratorate, the court, the judicial bureau and the bureau of Civil Affairs are all members of the 610 office. That is, all levels of the government departments follow orders from the 610 office which was led by the Central Party Committee, standing above the Constitution and the law. At the same time, all relevant orders are passed verbally without written documents. Moreover, the sections, counties and bureaus all follow the orders and the uniform coordination of the 610 office in persecuting Falun Gong. In Shenyang, a deputy director secretary of the municipal Party committee was in charge of the 610 office.

Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, who simply practise Falun Gong as a spiritual belief, have been sent to labour camps without any legal trial even though they never broke any law or the Constitution. They have been deprived of freedom, and subjected to forced brainwashing and torture. Many have been persecuted to death. As a consequence, many families have suffered.

In the four labour camps under my jurisdiction, there were usually about 1,000 male inmates. After the persecution of Falun Gong began, three of the labour camps saw as many as 500 Falun Gong practitioners being detained at a time. I know the torture methods used on Falun Gong practitioners in the labour camp system includes being electrically shocked with a 15,000 volt electric baton. I found out that even a 15-year-old girl was tortured this way. There is forced brainwashing, sleep deprivation for up to three days and nights, piercing legs with needles to force the Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief. They also force practitioners who gave up their belief against their will to brainwash those who haven't given up. Slave labour is also incorporated along with the mental and physical torture. The products made mainly for export include Christmas trees, Christmas ornaments, and small craft-work. Though I tried my best to protect Falun Gong practitioners, what I was able to do was very limited... I am one of the millions of people who have been deceived by the CCP and had once wholeheartedly loved and spared no effort to follow the CCP. But when you wake up from the nightmare and discover what you had worshipped is actually a demon, and all it has made you do is go against your conscience, the feeling of being cheated and fooled is a mixture of the deepest anger, regret and grief.

[...]